Samsung Tocco Lite GT-S5230 review

Summary

Our Score

8/10

User Score

Pros

Inexpensive, even on PAYG

Good battery life

Responsive touchscreen

Cons

No 3G

No Wi-Fi

No GPS

Review Price free/subscription

Key Features: Touchscreen;
MicroSD

Manufacturer: Samsung

The last Samsung handset I looked at was the high-end i8910 HD which was good enough to get one of our Recommended awards. Now I have the Tocco Lite, an altogether different proposition. It is designed for those that can't afford the high-end stuff, effectively bringing the touchscreen interface to a wider audience.

The Tocco Lite is a progression in a long line up. In May I had the slider Tocco Ultra, and way before that, this time last year, the original Tocco F480.

A year on, the Tocco Lite keeps the original's all touchscreen, slab rather than slider design. And it is affordable. My review sample, for example, came from Virgin Mobile where it is free on 18-month contracts from £12 a month, or costs £44 on an ultra low £8.50 per month 18-month contract. And on Pay As You Go it costs just £130.

Of course you don't get every whistle and bell for that kind of money. The camera, for example, shoots at just 3.2 megapixels. More difficult to swallow for some, perhaps, will be the lack of 3G. The Tocco Lite is quad-band GSM with GPRS and EDGE. But Samsung's widgets concept is here, the touchscreen is responsive, and this is a relatively small and light phone for its genre.

Pocketability is actually a key plus point of this handset. At 106mm x 53.5mm x 11.9 mm, it is pretty small considering it packs a 3in screen. The screen is bright and sharp, and its 240 x 400 pixels offer enough breadth to make it perfectly adequate for space hungry activities like web browsing. The Tocco Lite is precisely what its name suggests in terms of weight. At 92g, it shouldn't be a burden to tote.

The physical design is tidy if predictable. Black is the predominant chassis colour, with a few silver highlights featuring in the three below-screen buttons. These offer Call and End features and a back button. There is a menu row on the bottom of the touchscreen, which often offers three additional shortcuts too. On the main screen, for example, these take you to the phonebook, numberpad, and the handset main menu.

The touchscreen is resistive rather than capacitive, but it proved to be quite responsive to the finger. It is certainly better tuned than many resistive touchscreens I've tried.

All of which makes the lack of 3G something of a pain. Yes, I know this is a budget touchscreen mobile, but the very presence of a large screen makes you hanker for the kinds of features that large screens are good at. I've mentioned web browsing already. Another example is the built-in Google Maps. They just cry out for fast connections. The latter also wants GPS but that is not here either. And nor is Wi-Fi.